Rick Cummings, President of Radio Programming for Emmis Communications, will represent his hometown of Cloverdale on October 6 when he is officially inducted into the Indiana Broadcast Association Richard M. Fairbanks Hall of Fame. (Courtesy Photo) When Rick Cummings was calling play-by-play for the boys’ basketball team in the late 1960s as a student at Cloverdale High School, he could have never imagined he’d one day watch a major league baseball game from the box of then New York Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner and then, just a few hours later, watch Mick Jagger dance across a stage at the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri with the Rolling Stones.

The 1969 CHS grad is currently enjoying his life in Burbank, California where he serves as President of Radio Programming for Emmis Communications’ domestic radio group. Following his graduation from Butler University, Cummings has been with the company since its establishment in 1981 when he became the first program director at flagship station WENS-FM.

During his time with Emmis Communications, Cloverdale native Rick Cummings has been involved with numerous philanthropic endeavors including Project Sunshine where visits are made to children’s hospitals. (Courtesy Photo) “Cloverdale was interesting. I grew up in the Mickey Mantle, Bill Russell era and was a sports fan from the time I can remember. I was never an athlete, but I was a sports fan. When I was in the early years of high school, my dad ran the Marathon gas station at the corner of Main and Market streets, where the only stoplight was,” he recalled. “At the time, Cloverdale had a magnificent (boys’) basketball team and in 1966 went all the way to the final four. It was kind of like a modern day Milan story at the time. Of course, the town was basketball crazy and my dad, along with most of the other merchants in town, would buy sponsorships for the play-byplay broadcasts on WXTA in Greencastle. At some point, a year or two after the final four run, we still had a good team and the topic came up that he had a son who might be really interested in getting a chance to be on play-by-play broadcasts. That’s how it all happened. I still laugh and think about how my interest in broadcasting first started because my dad’s gas station was a sponsor for the play-by-play broadcasts.”

Cloverdale native Rick Cummings often has the opportunity to mingle with celebrities through his work with Emmis Communications. Cummings (second from right) is pictured above with, left to right: 2008 Miss USA Crystle Stewart, Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan, Miss Teen USA Stevi Perry and 2007 Miss Universe Riyo Mori. (Courtesy Photo) Getting a taste for the radio in high school, Cummings headed to Butler with hopes of becoming the next Howard Cosell.

“Sometime during my senior year it dawned on me that there are only about 100 great play-byplay broadcast jobs in the country,” Cummings noted. “The people who have them never give them up, so I became a little more realistic and broadened my horizons. I thought, maybe not play-by-play, maybe just anything I can do to get into radio and I was fortunate to get my foot in the door.”

By 1984, Cummings was traveling west as the National Program Director for Emmis when he launched KPWR in Los Angeles and then WFAN in New York, the country’s first all-sports station. In 2002, he became the president of the Radio Division of Emmis Communications before obtaining his current position in 2008.

“I’ve been in southern California now for almost 20 years. When Jeff Smulyan started Emmis he asked if I wanted to come back. I had been doing talk radio, didn’t really like it and was finally figuring that out. So when the opportunity came I took it,” Cummings explained. “I moved back to Indianapolis and we started WENS in July of 1981. The company eventually became the largest privately owned radio company in the country. In the very early ‘90s during the last big recession, it became obvious that some of us who had corporate jobs really needed to take jobs in the field, so I moved out to California to try to revive our radio station out here and was able to do that and I’ve just stayed here.”

In October, Cummings will join a long list of influential people in Indiana broadcasting when he is inducted into the Indiana Broadcaster Association broadcast pioneers Richard M. Fairbanks Hall of Fame.

“It’s great; I would have never expected it, honestly. It’s especially nice to be in the same inductee class as Bob McClain, who started at Channel 6 while I was a junior at Butler, so I certainly know him,” Cummings said. “I know all of the folks who are going into the class and it’s an honor to be in their presence.”

Cummings noted the numerous charitable opportunities he’s been a part of with Emmis over the years. He mentioned working with Homebody Industries in the Burbank area, where inner-city kids are helped to get out of gangs and begin to lead productive lives.

“We’ve been very involved in that effort for the past 15 years. I’m also very proud of our work with Project Sunshine, which raises money and visits kids with significant illnesses in hospitals all over the world,” he said. “That is some memorable stuff that I will carry with me for a long time.”

Cummings has also had the chance to travel the world and attend numerous major sporting events and concerts.

“When you work at a company like Emmis you are afforded a lot of amazing opportunities and one of the things they’ve asked me to do for the Hall of Fame thing is to take my biography and find some photos that support the bio. I’m not much for nostalgia or picture keeping, but we’ve gone back and looked and it’s reminded me of some of the most amazing things they have afforded me over the years,” Cummings noted. “I’ve met just about every celebrity you can think of, and put on some pretty big events. It’s also afforded me the opportunity to take my family all over the world on some great travel. One of the things that has come home to me is that I never forgot where I was from. I never tried to pretend I was somebody that I wasn’t and I think that’s why it’s all worked. I love getting back (to Cloverdale). It’s been memorable to go back to high school reunions; our 40th was in 2009. You look at a lot of people in the media business and a lot of them do have roots in the Midwest, because Midwestern folks are just able to get along anywhere in the world. What’s been great for me is to look at the nearly 30 years of Emmis and realize what great opportunities I’ve had, some of which I was actually able to take advantage of.”

Cummings has also spent the last few years serving as a trustee on the Board of Directors at Butler University, where his son is a legacy undergraduate student.

“Watching Butler get to the final game of the NCAA tournament and being there for both of those was really an extraordinary experience,” he said. “After Duke, I told my son, who was about to become a freshman, ‘You better enjoy this, because chances are you’ll never see it again.’ Then a year later there we are in Houston. Watching that team and seeing the values coach (Brad) Stevens and (former university president) Bobby Fong have instilled in that university and its followers and its athletes has been great. It’s something you don’t get to see very often, if ever.”